Up until now, it has been a common practice to provide, in a pyrolytic range, an oven door latch that is manually operable and that requires two operations: first the latch is set in locking engagement with the door and secondly a button is pressed to disengage the latch prior to unlocking the door. One example of a manually door latch mechanism is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,125,365 issued Mar. 17, 1964.
Another type of door locking assembly consists of a mechanism associated with an oven door in which the door cannot be locked unless the oven is connected to its source of power and, when locked, can only be unlock when the oven is below a certain temperature or cannot be unlocked so long as the oven is above this temperature. Examples of such locking assemblies are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,521,618 issued July 28, 1970 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,831,580 issued Aug. 27, 1974. These systems generally consist of a latch which engages the door and locks it every time the door is closed even for normal cooking. In some systems a solenoid is used to prevent the latch from being moved during the self-cleaning cycle. However, if there is a power failure, the latch mechanism is de-energized. This condition is unwanted since the oven can accidently be opened with temperatures inside the oven still above the acceptable limit.